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| The Art of Japanese Gardens: Designing & Making Your Own Peaceful Space |
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| Manufacturer: Sterling |
| Customer Rating: |
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| List Price: $14.95 |
| Sale Price: $14.95 |
| Availibility: Usually ships in 24 hours |
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Product Description |
| Often gardeners become so enslaved to the work of maintenance and transformation that they neglect the meditative potential of their green space. Worrying over the details, the whole picture is sometimes lost. This is an attitude Herb Gustafson hopes to check in The Art of Japanese Gardens, a beautifully photographed book that creates in the reader a longing for total silence. Photographs of tranquil bridges, bright spidery Japanese maple leaves, and shimmering ponds are accompanied by unpretentious philosophical asides like "Our gardens can become a profound representation of the universe as a whole," and "We must pause to reflect on our journey thus far." Gustafson is not a stickler for historical detail: his notion of a "Japanese" garden is a hybrid of styles, some ancient, some modern. Chapters include "Boundaries," in which a variety of fences, walls, and gates are presented along with accessible descriptions of construction techniques. The third chapter explores that great dreamlike element of the traditional Japanese garden: the constant sound of running water, artificial streams where "we sit and are relaxed by the never-ending flow." To truly carry out many of Gustafson's projects, the reader needs to be extremely handy, or planning on hiring a professional. It's also an ideal coffee-table book for the urban apartment dweller who needs to be reminded of peaceful spaces every once in a while, even when the "journey thus far" seems like a series of missed connections and splitting headaches. --Emily White |
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Product Details |
- ISBN13: 9781402745003
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Customer Reviews |
 Waste of money |
| Review Date: October 9, 2009 |
| Reviewer: H. Corvers, |
This book is not about Japanese gardens, whatever the title. I have read a lot of books about Japanese gardens but the content of this book is not in concordance with what other authors write about Japanese gardens.
Foto 4-7 is referred to as a bright, flashy and colourfull Chinese-style gazebo in a cultivated Japanese garden. The foto though shows indeed a Chinese-style structure but the garden shows a two-tier fountain with a manneke-piss on top .... in a Japanese garden?
The foto's are nice but nowhere are there descriptions given of what it is or where it is.
Then there are a lot of fotos of beautiful acers, but nowhere is there a connection to the text.
And finally there are the drawings and the maps/designs. The drawings, to me, are basic but ok. The maps/designs are terrible: they are inconclusive and no time nor effort is put into it to make them at least look good or in any way professional.
To me this book is an absolute waste of money. |
Only mediocre
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| Review Date: February 1, 2006 |
| Reviewer: RDR, Houston |
| This book has some lovely photographs, but is very short on any real detail or practical information on making a japanese garden in your own home. I found it much less useful than the Ortho book on Japanese Gardens. I would not recommend it. There are better books for appreciation and better practical guides. |
There is no how-to section on designing and making...
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| Review Date: January 18, 2005 |
| Reviewer: Cesar K. Ramos, |
Take a peak at the excerpt provided. you will notice some acer palmatum japanese maples, in a section for cedar fences, for bamboo fences, fence railing. A back section for plant common and latin names. The are some very rough hand drawings no diagrams. Take a look at the index, look for the words "designing", "making", "creating", or "building".
Coffee table book...get it.
Sunset or Ortho type...don't. |
Really Good
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| Review Date: April 17, 2000 |
| Reviewer: , |
| I sent this book as a present for my sister and she loved it. Presently, she is studying landscape engineering. We are both of the opinion that this would assist both the beginner and more advanced landscape students. Not only does it have great ideas, but it expresses it from both visual and written perspectives. This is highly recommended. |
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